By Ivor Griffiths
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Tough Guy
down at the dole, behind a plastic desk he grunts, scratches and wipes, the bureaucrat. He drops his pen, pinches sagging chins stuck on a face round as a plate hirsute bespectacled and sweating a belt buckle joining piano wire
cutting though off-white dough tie sticks out and curling, at 45 degrees. A flat expressionless stare, slight frown bored, uncaring, detached covered in glass and hair.
The anxious anorexic fidgets before him twirling a filter tip unlit, itching to leave, aching to ignore
the flannel grey suit, tufted and smelly, is slouching in his chair, squinting at a form Last job you had was in 1964 leaning forward, delicately thin, crimson finger nails steeple she smiles, deep, into pencil point eyes.
Tough Shit, Im leaving she says, and rising, flicks ash onto his hair. Ivor Griffiths 2006
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